THREE weeks after the exciting news that Peugeot, Red Bull and Total have decided to join forces once again, this time to contest the 2015 Dakar, the car that will spearhead the team’s challenge has finally broken cover.
The muscular, beastlike form of the Peugeot 2008 DKR provides a vivid indication of the new car’s serious desire for success.
It is behind the wheel of this purpose-designed machine that Carlos Sainz and Cyril Despres will defend the colours of Team Peugeot Total on next January’s Dakar.
The 2008 DKR shares an unmistakable family resemblance with Peugeot’s road-going 2008 crossover, albeit with more muscular forms and more imposing overall proportions.
Its spectacular lines are the fruit of close cooperation between the experts at Peugeot’s Style Centre and their colleagues at the Sport’s Design Department.
Far more than just another styling exercise, the 2008 DKR features an aggressive stance dictated by the technical constraints associated with its mission.
Project Leader at Peugeot Sport, Jean-Christophe Pailler, said: “We provided Peugeot’s Style Centre with a very precise brief. We supplied them with the basic key dimensions, as well as other information such as the cabin space we required, plus the wheel size and the suspension travel. They also had aerodynamic data resulting from our early simulation work.”
Indeed, Peugeot Sport’s design team had to answer one particularly fundamental question at a very early stage concerning the new beast’s transmission: four-wheel or two-wheel drive? The decision effectively influenced the car’s design in two key areas.
Jean-Christophe explained: “We carried out an in-depth analysis of what already existed in the world of cross-country rallying and weighed up the benefits of the different solutions.
“In the end, we opted for an approach that was quite different to that of the competition.
“Given the off-road capability of two-wheel drive transmission and its ability to run on sand, that’s the choice we ultimately went for. It enabled us to fit bigger wheels and also to benefit from more suspension travel.”